Masterworks I
Music to Remember with pianist Gabriela Montero and violist Peter Minkler
Sept 29 – 7:30 pm, Maryland Hall
Sept 30 – 7:30 pm, Maryland Hall
Masterworks 1 Program – Click Here to View the Digital Program
Carlos Simon This Land
Grieg Concerto for Piano in A minor, op. 16, Gabriela Montero, piano
Boris Pigovat Holocaust Requiem, Peter Minkler, viola
Masterworks I is an opportunity to showcase the intersection of art and life. The theme “Music to Remember” lends weight to the importance of using our individual and collective voices – through spoken word, art, and music – to remember history, to not repeat it, and to lend action in the achievement of social justice, democracy and peace.
The performance opens with composer Carlos Simon’s This Land, a lush and bright piece that incorporates the national anthems of immigrants to America, representing hope and unity.
Grieg’s Piano Concerto is the only concerto Grieg completed and remains one of the most popular of the genre. The final version of the concerto was completed only a few weeks before Grieg’s death, and it is this version that has achieved fame worldwide.
Gabriela Montero will perform as solo pianist. Born in Venezuela, Montero started her piano studies at age four, making her concerto debut at age eight in her hometown of Caracas. This led to a scholarship from the government to study privately in the USA and then at the Royal Academy of Music in London with Hamish Milne.
The ASO presents the United States première of Boris Pigovat’s “Holocaust Requiem,” in memory of the 1941 Babyn Yar massacre in Kyiv, Ukraine. That horrible event was the first and best documented of the massacres that occurred at the hands of the Nazis in 1941, killing 33,771 Jewish people over two days. The première will be performed on the 82nd anniversary of the massacre. Peter Minkler of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra will be the featured viola soloist.
Instrumentation
Carlos Simon, This Land
2 flutes (2nd doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 2 horns, 2 trumpets, 1 trombone, timpani, vibraphone, triangle, crotales, tubular bells, bass drum, wind chimes, suspended cymbal, and strings
As played by the Arizona State University Symphony Orchestra
Edvard Grieg, Concerto for Piano in A minor with Gabriela Montero, Pianist
2 flutes (2nd doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, 2 clarinets, 2 bassoons, 4 horns, 2 trumpets, 3 trombones, timpani, and strings
As played by the London Symphony Orchestra with Arthur Rubenstein, Pianist
United States Première, Boris Pigovat, “Holocaust Requiem”, with Peter Minkler, Violist
Viola solo, 3 flutes (3rd doubling piccolo), 2 oboes, 3 clarinets (3rd doubling bass clarinet), 3 bassoons (3rd doubling contrabassoon), 4 horns, 3 trumpets, 3 trombones, 1 tuba, timpani, 3 wood blocks, tambourine, snare drum, tenor drum, 4 tom-toms, whip, suspended cymbal, cymbals, bass drum, tam-tam, glockenspiel, chimes, xylophone, vibraphone, marimba, and strings
Music Notes
Carlos Simon, United States (1986 – ) “This Land: “Towards a More Perfect Union”
Carlos Simon’s “This Land: “Towards a More Perfect Union” was inspired by the poetry of Jewish-Russian poet Anna Lazarus, a passionate immigration activist. Her poem “The New Colossus”, written in 1883, compares the Statue of Liberty to the ancient Greek Colossus of Rhodes, presenting this “new colossus” as a patroness of immigrants rather than a symbol of military might. The statue’s role and the poem’s hopeful, unironic tone offer an idealistic vision of America’s role on the world stage as a welcomer and protector of immigrants. Simon notes: “Lush, bright harmonies in the strings are used to represent hope and unity.” Simon is composer-in-residence at the Kennedy Center for the Arts and Assistant Professor at the College of Performing Arts at Georgetown University.
Edvard Grieg, Norway (June 5, 1843 – September 4, 1907) Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16
The Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 16, composed by Edvard Grieg in 1868, was the only concerto Grieg completed. It is one of his earliest and most popular works and is also among the most popular of the genre. Written by Grieg when he was 24-years-old, it was completed in Søllerød, Denmark, during one of Grieg’s visits there to benefit from the climate.
Grieg’s concerto provides evidence of his interest in Norwegian folk music; the opening flourish is based on the motif of a falling minor second followed by a falling major third, which is typical of the folk music of Grieg’s native country. In the last movement of the concerto, listeners may hear similarities to the halling – a Norwegian folk dance- and imitations of the Hardanger fiddle – the Norwegian folk fiddle.
The concerto is the first piano concerto ever recorded—by pianist Wilhelm Backhaus in 1909. Due to the technology of the time, it was heavily abridged and ran only six minutes
Grieg revised the work at least seven times, usually in subtle ways, but the revisions amounted to over 300 differences from the original orchestration. The final version of the concerto was completed only a few weeks before Grieg’s death, and it is this version that has achieved worldwide popularity.
Pianist Gabriela Montero will perform as soloist for Edvard Grieg’s celebrated Piano Concerto. Born in Venezuela, Montero started her piano studies at age four, making her concerto debut at age eight in her hometown of Caracas. This led to a scholarship from the government to study privately in the USA and then at the Royal Academy of Music in London with Hamish Milne. Winner of the 4th International Beethoven Award, Montero is a committed advocate for human rights, whose voice regularly reaches beyond the concert hall. She was named an Honorary Consul by Amnesty International in 2015 and recognized with Outstanding Work in the Field of Human Rights by the Human Rights Foundation for her ongoing commitment to human rights advocacy in Venezuela. In January 2020, she was invited to give the Dean’s Lecture at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute and has spoken and performed twice at the World Economic Forum in Davos. She was also awarded the 2012 Rockefeller Award for her contribution to the arts and was a featured performer at Barack Obama’s 2008 Presidential Inauguration.
Boris Pigovat, Odessa, Ukraine (1953 – ) “Holocaust Requiem”
To end this program, we present the United States première of Boris Pigovat’s “Holocaust Requiem,” in memory of the 1941 Babyn Yar massacre in Kyiv, Ukraine. That horrible event was the first and best-documented of the massacres that occurred at the hands of the Nazis in 1941, killing more than 33,771 Jewish people over two days. The première will be performed September 29th and 30th, 2023, on the 82nd anniversary of the massacre. Peter Minkler of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra will be the featured viola soloist.
Pigovat, originally from Ukraine but currently living and working in Israel, lost his grandparents and aunt in the Babyn Yar massacre. The music speaks to his family’s pain, and that of all people who have experienced loss due to the horrors of invasion, war, and genocide. Each movement of the Requiem is named after the Latin Mass text, the emotional symbols of sorrow, suffering, and hope expressed purely instrumentally but led by the ‘human’ voice of the viola.
“I knew that I had to write this part of the Requiem to depict, by means of music, this ruthless conveyor of death, to try to express the feelings of horror, helplessness, pain, and despair experienced by those who lived and died in this terrible time. If the listener feels the pain and shudders, I would consider my task accomplished.” Boris Pigovat
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